


Bringer of Sorrow

by Glinda



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Betrayal, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 22:20:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5982679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Hilbert's betrayal, Minkowski and Eiffel attempt to pick up the pieces.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bringer of Sorrow

**Author's Note:**

> I just finished the first series of Wolf 359 and it left me with all the feels. There isn't really a space for this to be a missing scene as it kind of needs to take place after the end of the episode but before they hear back from Command. *waves hands* Whatever Command does tell them will doubtless Joss all this - but I needed to wallow in my feelings before I could bring myself to start in on the next series.

The aftermath of Hilbert’s betrayal is a little odd. Does it really count as betrayal if he was under orders? Minkowski certainly feels betrayed so she’ll stick with that for now, no matter what pragmatic decisions she may have to make in future. (He lobotomised their AI. That feels as unforgiveable as trying to kill his fellow crewmates right now. She doesn’t want to think about the practical reasons they may all need to get past that seemingly insurmountable hurdle to get through the rest of this mission alive.) There are at least half a dozen other things she could be doing with her time right now, all of them twice as important to the continued safety of the mission. 

But here she is. Sitting on the floor of the Bridge, carefully sorting through the wreckage that was once Hera’s personality circuits. As commander of this mission she needs a certain level of technical skill – they all do, in order to make necessary repairs to the ship – but she isn’t an electrical engineer by a long shot. Essentially, Minkowski knows enough to know she doesn’t know enough to fix this. She doesn’t doubt that between them they can put this back together, but she meant what she said to Eiffel. Whatever they get back, may not be the Hera they remember. Realistically if they want the Hera they knew back, they should really wait until they can get a professional to take a look at her. However, that’s not going to happen until the end of the mission and realistically, without them to miss her, Command will probably just wipe her and install a new AI. To say Hera and Minkowski have had their differences is an understatement, but she wouldn’t wish that on her – not unless she was certain they’d done all they could. So emergency surgery it is.

~ 

Eiffel is taking Hera’s loss badly. Really, really badly. He’d freaked out before when Hera had gone into Super Energy Saver Mode but not like this, this was different.

Minkowski has gotten used to Eiffel’s stress responses. His defence mechanisms and idiosyncrasies may drive her up the wall but they’re familiar, she knows how to handle them. Over the last year and a bit, there have been countless times when Minkowski would have given quite a lot for her Communications Officer to be quiet and subdued for a couple of hours. Now though, she wishes desperately for one of his rambling, ranting, insubordinate, occasionally outright rude, tangents. If only he was responding to Hilbert’s betrayal and Hera’s loss with inappropriate humour or even destructive anger then Minkowski could cope better. Could focus on other tasks instead of sitting here on the floor sorting circuits with her Communications officer. They could have one of their ridiculous fights and stomp off to different parts of the ship to deal with their anger and sadness in their own ways. 

This subdued, still Eiffel is a stranger to her, and she can’t find it within herself to leave him alone with this task. If only because she’s a little concerned that if she leaves him alone in here she’s going find him later having tucked himself into the hole in the servers where Hera’s personality should be. 

Minkowski realises that Eiffel has stopped moving in her peripheral vision and looks over eager for some sign that he’s skiving off, that some fragment of normal service might be reasserting itself. Instead she can clearly see that he’s stopped because one of his hands is shaking, he tucks it against his body for a long moment before reaching out again, tremor suppressed.

“Get some rest, Doug,” she tells him eventually, as gently as she can. 

He stares down at the circuits in his hands for a long moment before nodding in acknowledgement. 

“Yeah. I should do that. Thanks Commander, I’ll…go do that.”

He’s careful with the circuits as he lays them down where they won’t accidentally get stood on. It’s the most care she’s ever seen him take with equipment that wasn’t actually part of the Comms room. Almost tender. When did that happen, she wonders, when did Hera become his friend? But then both Eiffel and Hilbert had had a tendency to treat Hera more like a crewmate – sometimes a co-conspirator - than equipment. She can’t trust Hilbert’s motivations in regard to anything now, but it seems that in Eiffel’s case, that comradeship was at least partly genuine. (He may be a fairly useless soldier, but somewhere under the pettiness, self-sabotage and sarcasm Minkowski suspects him of being a decent human being.) Perhaps that’s why she can’t bring herself to abandon this task, this idea that Hera was part of the crew, that Minkowski owes her this the way if Hera’d been flesh and blood she’d have been owed a decent funeral. 

~

Later, as she returns to her quarters, Minkowski hears the faint strains of the Planets suite drifting out of Eiffel’s quarters. She doubts she’ll ever hear those strains without thinking of betrayal and the cold dread of encroaching suffocation. But she’s just spent a couple of hours reviewing the recordings that…remain in the ship’s computer from the run up to the crisis. (Searching for anything that might explain Hilbert’s actions, anything that hinted what he was about to do.) She remembers the warmth of that conversation between Hera and Eiffel. Thinks about their AI devoting a small part of her processing power to finding a signal, seeking something relevant, for no better reason than knowing it would make one of her human crew smile. To mark a birthday that she knew and knew would be forgotten. 

They’ll get Hera back, she promises herself, however long it takes to find her in the circuitry. She’s their crewmate; they owe her that.


End file.
